All good design is sparked by a problem.
Look at the Segway. The Segway is a nearly perfect example of bad design. Instead of beginning with a problem and asking “What can I do about this?”, the designer began with a cool new technology, and asked “What can I build with this?” What he ended up with is a device that combines all of the disadvantages of walking with all of the disadvantages of a vehicle, while cleverly leaving out any of the advantages of either. Had he begun with a problem, he might have sold a noticeable number of them by now.
Nothing worthwhile was ever invented or discovered by a contented person.
Discovering what lies over the next hill is not an option for the person who is content right here. Just as we do not learn from agreement and accolades, but from dissent and disagreement, so we gain new inventions and discoveries through being dissatisfied with what we have and are. And I’m pretty dissatisfied with my (increasingly aged) Organic Memory Module. Yes, the big bulbous thing with the approximation of a Klingon face on the front.
The OMM, current model:
I’m hammering away in my word-processor of choice, OpenOffice. I get some odd-ball idea, some new way to say something, but right here and now aren’t the time and place. So I file it in the OMM. Next time I get a chance, the perfect chance, to say that new thing, or use that new phrase, or quote that perfect source, or whatever it was, the OMM… uh, does nothing. It’s too old. The chance slips away, only to be remembered in the dead of night without a pen handy or a reason to say or use or quote whatever it was. Sadness ensues.
So here’s my idea:
Devise a system that lets me use a hotkey sequence to bring up an onscreen display of a card with a line across it. Above the line, I put a keyword or words. Below the line I put whatever I want to connect to the keyword or words. I dismiss the card and go back to work. Every time I hit the space bar or the return key, or anything else that ends a word, the computer checks to see if the word I just completed is listed as a keyword on any of the cards I’ve created. (Oh, believe me, no matter how fast you think you can type, the computer has time for that. It’s twiddling its one finger (binary, you know), waiting for you.)
If the word is listed as a keyword, it gets highlighted in some color I chose at installation, and I can click on the word to call up the card(s) in question.
Good? Good. So why are you still here? Go write it, and get back to me. 
